CHAPTER THREE: THE WOMAN AT THE GATE

The bell came from a narrow cart road behind the orchard.
A woman stood beside an old mule with a rope tied around her wrist.
She wore a dark shawl and carried no lantern.
Elias recognized her voice before he saw her face.
“Martha?” he called.
Martha Bell had worked in the Voss kitchen until she disappeared three years earlier.
The household had been told she ran away.
Elias remembered that she had left behind a son who waited for her at the back gate every evening.
“You should not have come here,

” Martha said.
“You rang the bell,” Elias answered.
“I rang it for Ruth.”
Ruth moved past him and embraced Martha.
Elias saw that Martha’s hands were scarred by work, but her clothes were clean and carefully patched.
“Where is your son?” he asked.
“Alive,” Martha said.
“That is all I will tell you until I know why you came.”
Elias showed her the child’s shoe.
Martha’s expression tightened.
“Hannah made me promise I would bring that back one day,” she said.
“Hannah is alive?”
“She was alive when I saw her last month.”
Elias sat on the low wall because his legs had begun to shake.


For years he had carried the memory of his mother’s grief as though it were a stone beneath his ribs.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Not where Ralston can find her.”
Martha took the wooden counters and arranged them on the wall.
“These are not directions,” she said.
“They are proof that someone reached the children before the overseer did.”
Elias frowned.
“Who?”
“Adelaide’s first husband.”
Ruth stared at Martha.
“She was married before Mr. Voss?”
“She was widowed before she was eighteen,” Martha replied.
“His name was Samuel Lorne, and he worked for the county as a surveyor.”
“Why would a surveyor take children?” Elias asked.


“He did not take them,” Martha said.
“He helped their families hide them when Ralston began selling people without the master’s knowledge.”
Elias knew that a change in the name of the person taking the money would not change the terror of being sold.
“You are asking me to trust Adelaide because she knew a decent man once,” he said.
“No,” Martha replied.
“I am asking you to understand why Ralston wants the drawer.”
Ruth looked toward the house.
“Adelaide is pregnant,” she said.
Martha nodded slowly.
“And the child may be the reason he has come back tonight.”
Elias held the shoe tighter.


“Then we need to know what he intends before sunrise.”